How much will excerise help?

I have been extremely lax about exercise. The most I get is my daily trips up two flights of stairs; 5 flights if I arrive at work early enough. However, I definitely notice this excess sagging skin around my middle, my buttocks, and inner thighs. How much will exercise help tighten all that skin? Will I need to consider "nip and tuck" surgery later on down the road no matter how much exercise I do? Can we beat the odds of surgery just by excercise alone after losing over 100 pounds?

Exercise is not going to help much in "tightening" up loose or sagging skin. With this said an individuals participation in regular physical activity remains one of the best predictors of long term weight loss success. And while it is not going to really reduce the amount of sagging skin, it will reduce your cardiovascular disease risk in addition to many other diseases/conditions. Those are pretty compelling reasons to become more active.

I'm not going to argue with Jeremy, he's schooled and trained in this area, but both me and my surgeon are amazed at my minimal lose skin flab post-op and my exercise has been walking to jogging.  Yes we all will have lose skin and I do.  Plastic Surgery (PS) is certainly an option for most and in some cases required due to complications like rashes and even infections from rashes or raw skin not getting enough air but each is an individual and unique case so no predictions or prophecies at this time. I started at 5 min walks and progressed to over 4 months to 2 hour walks (as I accepted an invitation/challenge to doa 10K and decided I wanted to jog some and not walk the whole thing; my personal choice and goal).  No expensive gym equipment or gym memberships; just sneakers and appropriate comfortable clothes.  I even took my cell phone with me initially so if I got out beyond my ability to come home, I could call for a ride.  That never happened but I feared it might. I started making it to the end of my drive way, rest and come back in.  The to the corner of my street and back.  Then to the end of my steet, then around the block.  I started by keeping track of how many times a day and how minutes minutes a day I was walking.  So speed and distance were not a consideration.  As my distance increased, I became curious as to how far I was traveling and started clocking my walking routes in the car for mileage.  When my brother invited me to join him in a 10K, I had 3 months to prepare.  I had lost from 374 day of surgery to 294 and was walking about 3 miles a day.  10K is 6.2 miles so I decided I needed to get to that distance walking before race day to make sure I could without embarrassing myself.  it took me 2 hours 15 minutes the first time I did it and I ws whipped.  By race day 3 months later, I weighed 266 and jogged 3 of the 6 miles. I now weigh 230, I wear compression thigh length shorts to jog and shirts with sleeves so the arm flaps aren't aws obvouis and dont make that flapping sound when I run (they do but i hope its quiet enough that only I hear it).  I have soem thigh flaps and some lower stomach excess but I don't have the male boobs I really feared and the other is minimal.  the surgeon and I both credit the walking regime as my body fat had also reduced by my 12 month surgiversary to 19%. Walking is the easiest, simpliest, least expensive, and smartest thing you can incorporate in to the relearning process of our new post-op becoming a life-long slender person lifestyle.  Exercise is not frivilous or a hobby.  it is necessary for long term good health and muscle tone. Off soap box. Please except my effort to educate and motivate.  You can do this and have great success. But you have to make the choice to do this.  Nothing changes until you do. 

Hi Ramona! I'm just over 1 1/2 years out and I've been exercising since one month post-op.  I've done strength training and cardio at my gym.  It's expensive to go to the gym but I appreciate every cent I put into it ... and since I'm paying for it, I make sure I get every nickel out of that time that I can!  I have consistently gone to the gym on a very regular basis and I've lost 145 pounds.  However, I do have extra saggy skin ... arms, breasts, stomach, and inner thighs.  I can't say that it would be worse had I not exercised.  But I believe it has helped.  Not only that, it has formed a healthy lifestyle change in me and a commitment to keep exercising as part of a healthy life.  It's a positive thing to exercise, even if it doesn't reduce the saggy skin!   So, I say go for it!   Deanna  :)

Just adding on to what the others have said.  There is a big debate about whether exercise will help you to avoid the sagging skin.  There is no debate that the more muscle you build in your middle, buttocks, and thighs the easier the plastic surgery, the faster you heal, and the better the results look.   Also as obese individuals, we punished our bodies a lot, our lungs, our heart, and other organs.  A lot of cardio and weight training may help to reverse that damage.  You can't be lax about exercise, the sooner you start the better.  It should be part of your daily life, and it should make you weep when you miss a session. Just my 2 cents.  I'd say more, but I need to beat Joe to the gym. Rob

Thank you all for the motivation. I admit to walking dilingently post op up to 3 months out. I was walking 2 miles a day and felt pretty good for it. I did get on my treadmill (it sits all folded up in my bedroom, day after day) last evening, before I posted my question. I was amazed that I could actually job some of the time on it. I did 30 minutes to some really upbeat music. I have been looking forward all day to getting back home so I can get back on the machine. In the past 3 months that I have been lax, I had forgotten how good movement makes me feel about myself. I have so much more energy now that I don't have to lug around the extra 90 pounds that I have lost. So again, thank you. I will get back to exercising regularly starting last night. I will deal with the excess skin after reaching and maintaining goal for a while.